This invention relates generally to electrical connectors and is particularly directed to a PC board edge connector arrangement for maintaining a plurality of its connector pins at one or more precisely defined voltage levels.
Elongated, linear connectors are commonly used for electrically connecting a printed circuit (PC) board to another electronic/electrical circuit or component. These PC board edge connectors typically include an elongated plastic housing open along opposing edges thereof, with a plurality of linearly aligned female terminals adapted to engage various conductors on a PC board positioned adjacent one open edge of the connector and a plurality of terminal pins positioned adjacent a second, facing edge of the connector. This connector configuration permits the PC board conductors to be electrically coupled via the edge connector's terminal pins to other circuitry not mounted on the edge-connected PC board. Frequently, the edge connector's terminal pins are electrically coupled to a second PC board.
The prior art discloses various arrangements for coupling the edge connector's terminal pins to a second PC board. For example, each individual connector terminal pin may be hard wired to a respective terminal or conductor on the second PC board. Thus, a 25 pin edge connector would require 25 individual leads in coupling it to a PC board. Since each of these leads must be manually coupled at both ends thereof such as by crimping and/or soldering, this approach is somewhat unreliable in terms of the integrity of the electrical connections and is also labor intensive and thus expensive. Another approach makes use of a comb-like conductor having a plurality of linearly aligned teeth, each of which is coupled to a respective terminal pin of the edge connector by a combination of crimping and soldering. A single wire is then typically soldered to the base of the comb-like conductor and is, in turn, coupled to another circuit. This approach is of limited use where it is desired to provide one or more precisely defined voltage levels at the output of the edge connector since the resistance and thus the voltage across the comb-like conductor depends upon where along its length the conductor or conductors are coupled. In addition, the second soldering process frequently results in disruption of connections made in the preceding soldering step making this approach unreliable.
The present invention overcomes the aforementioned limitations of the prior art by providing a PC board edge connector with a shorting bus bar which provides a well defined voltage, or voltages, across its entire length in an arrangement which is adapted for inexpensive, reliable and rapid fabrication.